


Don't Blink. Don't Even Blink. Blink And They're Dead. Don't Turn Your Back, Don't Look Away, And Don't Blink.

by I_have_a_Mycroft_of_my_very_own



Series: Barduil [12]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Implied/Referenced Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-30
Updated: 2015-11-30
Packaged: 2018-05-04 02:15:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5316476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_have_a_Mycroft_of_my_very_own/pseuds/I_have_a_Mycroft_of_my_very_own
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a hundred years, all the mortals he cares for, will be dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Blink. Don't Even Blink. Blink And They're Dead. Don't Turn Your Back, Don't Look Away, And Don't Blink.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the Doctor Who episode Blink.

It’s not that he has not observed the ravages of time, how it gives and it takes in equal measure. He’s not as oblivious to its passage as he likes to believe, as many of his kind believe. It would be impossible to live as an immortal in a mortal world and not know, and see, and obverse, and understand the passing of time. _He_ is the outlier here, not them. _He_ is the strange creature, the one that is difficult to understand, not time, and not any of those mortal creatures that roam the land beside him. It is _his_ life that is the odd one out.

_“I’d die to know how-“_

_“You’re killing me!”_

_“Don’t do that! You nearly gave me a heart attack!”_

_“Yeah, she spent the night coughing up a lung.”_

_“Cross my heart and hope to die, and all that.”_

_“I’d die before I let anything happen to you.”_

_"You alright? It sounded like someone was dying in here."_

_"When you're finished murdering each other, breakfast is served."_

_“Dying sounds so good right now.”_

_“It’s too hot! I’m dying!”_

_“I’m going to freeze to death out here, I swear it!”_

_“Da says we can’t stay out too late or we’ll catch our death of cold.”_

He sees how death affects the mortals, how their lives are affected by the knowledge that one day they all will die. He sees how they take it in stride, shape lives that may not last, but will provide for the lives that will come after. He sees how little the fear of death stops them. He sees how easily they throw around references to it. Their pain is not diminished, yet their ability to talk and joke about death is not diminished, either.

He can’t remember the last time he ever truly spoke of death with anything but horror, sadness, fear, and regret. But these mortals, they do it so easily. Time is not kind to them, it is a universal agreement. Time is not kind to them because it takes from them, it destroys them. Time is not kind to them, because it runs out on them.

Time is not kind to him, either. Nor to his kind. He can’t help but wonder every now and then, whether Eru had made a mistake. Whether he realized his error in judgement in giving elves immortal lifespans, and so corrected himself with the humans, and with all creatures that came after. Even the dwarves, fashioned of stone, unyielding and unexpected, were given mortal lives. They came from the earth, and to the earth they return.

_“Sometimes I wish I could have seen what the world was like in the First Age. In the Second. The time of the Trees.”_

_“There are stories, you know? They date back so, so many generations, but you can never truly know how accurate they are. And it’s not really the same as seeing it with your own eyes.”_

_“The world covered in a great forest. Trees that came alive and spoke. The gods walking the earth. Cities sunk beneath the oceans. I wish I could have seen it.”_

_“Sometimes I wonder what would have become of us. If we were immortal like you elves are. It is the knowledge that one day we will die that drives us to make something of ourselves. What would have become of us if we never had that incentive? It chills me to think of it.”_

_“All the world standing still. Nothing aging, nothing changing. What use are there for children, when their great, great grandfather’s still walk the earth? They are our future, they shape the world when we are gone, as we shaped the world before them. What use have we for them, if we never relinquish the earth?”_

_“So many of us would give up so much to live another day. Just one more. But never in our wildest dreams would we think to give it all. When all you’ve got left to lose is your life, you’ve got nothing left that’s worth living for.”_

So many of his kind would scoff at the idea of mortals understanding more about life than immortals. But so many of his kind are stuck in the old ways. Time has little meaning to them. Its passage something that simply happens, but impacts upon them not at all. The changing of the ages merely new days in the long years of their life, nothing they choose to dwell on. Mortals count each year of their life with bated breath, and celebrate so enthusiastically each time they survive. Each day is lived to its fullest, each moment cherished.

Mortal settlements have never stood still, as elven settlements have. They’ve never lost themselves outside of the normal passage of time. Each new generation added to a society grows the society, changes its way of thinking, of doing, and living. Mortal settlements are ever changing.

Sometimes it makes him jealous.

In a hundred years, all the mortals he cares for, will be dead.

One hundred years is a mere blink in the life of an elf.

**_Blink_ **


End file.
